Pliny the Younger

Pliny the Younger was the nephew of Pliny
the Elder, and was visiting his uncle at Pompeii
when his uncle died in the eruption.
Pliny the Younger, however, did not die, and has left us the only eye-witness
account of what the eruption was like. Pliny went on to become a fairly
important politician in the Roman Empire under the emperor Trajan.

Trajan sent Pliny to be the governor of Bithynia (on
the Black Sea) in 117 AD,
where he had to run the province and make sure there were no revolts
and everyone paid their taxes. While he was trying to keep order there,
Pliny ran into some problems with the Christians
which provide our first evidence that Christianity had become illegal.

Pliny was a great letter-writer, and he kept copies
of many of his letters and later published them for everyone to read.
Many of his letters have survived to the present day. They provide very
useful information about the life of wealthy aristocrats in Rome during
the Golden Age of the Roman Empire.

Bibliography and further reading about Pliny the Younger:

Karen Eva Carr, PhD.Assoc. Professor Emerita, History
Portland State University

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Professor Carr holds a B.A. with high honors from Cornell University in classics and archaeology, and her M.A. and PhD. from the University of Michigan in Classical Art and Archaeology. She has excavated in Scotland, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, and Tunisia, and she has been teaching history to university students for a very long time.

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